BATTLE-AXE, an ancient military weapon. Axes were a principal part of the offensive armour of the Celtæ. At the siege of the Roman Capitol by the Gauls under Brennus, we find one of the most distinguished of their warriors armed with a battle-axe. And Ammianus Marcellinus, many centuries afterwards describing a body of Gauls, furnishes them all with battle axes and swords. Some of these weapons have been found in the sepulchres of the Britons, on the downs of Wiltshire and in the north of Scotland. Within these four or five centuries the Irish went constantly armed with an axe. And the axe of Lochaber hath remained a formidable implement of destruction in the hands of our Highlanders, even nearly to the present period.